Macallan Tree of Life 46YO 1979

Two sherry-seasoned oak casks from 1979, combined into a single release of 112 decanters. The 46 years are the point of it: Charles Rennie Mackintosh was 46 when he broke from architecture, rented a fishing shed by a river and painted the flowers and plants that had run through his designs for decades — a study of nature that eventually took him from architecture altogether. The Lalique crystal decanter is stoppered with a crystal rose drawn from his 1902 stained-glass panel, The Spirit of the Rose, and a sculpture worked in the manner of his architectural metalwork encloses it.

The Macallan's tasting notes: tropical fruits, complex wood spice and antique oak; the colour of polished oak.